Listen to an atypically confrontational interview with Rob Ford's brother-in-chief

Toronto city councillor Doug Ford appeared on Newstalk 1010 on Thursday afternoon on the Live Drive show regularly hosted by John Tory.

But the potential challenger to Mayor Rob Ford in the Oct. 27 election had the day off — so fill-in hosts Adrienne Batra and Scott Reid got to grill him instead in fashion that was uncharacteristically confrontational compared to past appearances that the Fords have conceded to.

(Batra was the mayor’s press secretary during his first year in office while Reid was a high-profile advisor to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. Both have pursued careers in the media since that time.)

Two new memes were added to the Ford family lexicon in the process: Smearing the “one per cent” represented by Tory — even though the brothers inherited wealth from the company founded by their fathers — and a comment about “buck naked men” at the gay pride events.

Tory has been absent from his Newstalk 1010 show with some frequency in the past month for reasons that may or may not be related to meetings about a potential candidacy for mayor, which he has promised will be decided on by the end of February.